Small Volcanic Eruptions Explain Warming Hiatus

The “warming hiatus” that has occurred over the last 15 years has been caused in part by small volcanic eruptions.
Small Volcanic Eruptions Explain Warming Hiatus
In this Nov. 26, 2014 photo, volcanic smoke billows from Mount Aso, Kumamoto prefecture, on the southern Japanese main island of Kyushu. The volcano is blasting out chunks of magma in the first such eruption in 22 years, causing flight cancellations and prompting warnings to stay away from its crater. The Japan Meteorological Agency said Friday, Nov. 28 that Mount Aso had spewed out lava debris and smoke, shooting plumes of ash a kilometer (3,280 feet) into the sky. The observatory does not expect the eruption to increase in scale. (AP Photo/Kyodo News) JAPAN OUT, MANDATORY CREDIT
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The “warming hiatus” that has occurred over the last 15 years has been caused in part by small volcanic eruptions.

Scientists have long known that volcanoes cool the atmosphere because of the sulfur dioxide that is expelled during eruptions. Droplets of sulfuric acid that form when the gas combines with oxygen in the upper atmosphere can persist for many months, reflecting sunlight away from Earth and lowering temperatures at the surface and in the lower atmosphere.

Previous research suggested that early 21st-century eruptions might explain up to a third of the recent warming hiatus.

the prevailing scientific thinking was that only very large eruptions — on the scale of the cataclysmic 1991 Mount Pinatubo eruption in the Philippines, which ejected an estimated 20 million metric tons (44 billion pounds) of sulfur — were capable of impacting global climate.
Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory
Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory
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